House of Lords Act 1999 (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, the answer to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, about who is to blame is this: Jack Weatherill, and I will explain why. Perhaps I may start by saying that I support my noble friend’s Bill and I congratulate him on it. It is a step in the right direction in terms of reforming your Lordships’ House. It provides for reform by small steps, which is the way I think that most Members and the Government would like to progress. We are committed to achieving most of what the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, has just been talking about.

It is clear that the election of hereditary Peers has become ridiculous. My noble friend gave an example where seven candidates stood and three electors voted for the recent vacancy on the Liberal Democrat Benches. We can overcome most things, but we cannot overcome ridicule, especially as how appointments to this House are made is a major public concern, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, pointed out.

I served on the Government Front Bench when the 1999 Bill was being debated, so I am pretty ancient. I clearly remember that the election of 90 hereditary Peers was seen as a compromise. It was a temporary arrangement that was negotiated by Jack Weatherill—a former Speaker of the House of Commons—as a way of overcoming the huge number of hereditary Peers who at the time could block or delay any legislation in this House. That was the purpose of the negotiation.

[Viscount Waverley]

I apologise to the noble Lord. Will he take into account the difference between facilitating and negotiating? I think that Lord Weatherill facilitated the process to which he refers.

[Lord Haskel]

The noble Viscount is quite right: he did facilitate the process rather than negotiate it. I thank him for pointing that out.

Some 15 of the 90 hereditary Peers were appointed by virtue of being former or at the time current Deputy Speakers. The purpose and usefulness of the procedure has obviously served us well, but it has now expired. The Deputy Speakers have served their time and an elected House is a long way off. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is absolutely right to point out that the two additional hereditary Peers were agreed purely for ceremonial purposes.

I agree with other noble Lords that the Bill being put forward by my noble friend deals fairly with the current hereditaries. Of course many have made an important and distinguished contribution to the House. They are eligible to become life Peers and some have already done so. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Elton. This Bill provides the House, hereditary Peers and the country with the certainty that he is looking for. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that it would be a useful and sensible step along the way to reducing our numbers, but that is a separate matter and is one for a separate Bill. But again, this is something about which many noble Lords are agreed. Most of us are committed to step-by-step reform, of which the Steel Bill was one example. This is another one, and I think that the Government should support it.

Civil Society and Lobbying

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, as I understand it, the Government have put on hold the rules regarding the lobbying activities of organisations that receive taxpayers’ money. They are right to do so because their thinking is very confused.

It is not anti-government to seek the best welfare for our fellow citizens. It is not anti-government to seek the highest standards of health and safety. It is not anti-government to seek the highest standards of truth and accuracy in reporting the news. It is not anti-government to have a say in genetic manipulation. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who is not in his place, that it is not anti-government to seek higher standards of conservation. These are some of the voices to which my noble friend Lady Hayter referred—the real-world experiences, as the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, put it—voices which tell us where government policy is failing and where our priorities should lie. These voices want a say in shaping society, not by revolution or violence but by balance—the kind of balance about which my noble friend Lady Jowell spoke. These voices need to be heard. They are not voices that the Government should seek to silence because they are funded by the taxpayer. It will not have escaped the Minister’s notice that the very reason these organisations are sometimes funded by the Government is that both seek the same ends. But democracy and the welfare of society are the not the only reasons why the Government should listen to trade unions, charities and civil society. These organisations are also the voices of progress—social, scientific, medical and commercial—based on experience, as my noble friend Lord Griffiths put it.

We are debating the Investigatory Powers Bill at the moment. Technology has given us new ways of communicating—ways that make our lives easier, our communications quicker, more social and more fun. But these ways are also available to criminals and terrorists. This Bill will clarify to what extent our communications can be intercepted and recorded by the authorities. Previously, powers of interference and access to records were created as and when the need arose. However, in debate on that Bill, we hear quite clearly the voices of civil society, reaching a balance between the commercial interests of the communications business, the concerns of our national security and our right to privacy. Without the voices of civil society, charities and trade unions, I doubt whether a satisfactory balance would be achieved on the Bill.

More technology is on the way which will require this kind of balance. Let us take, for instance, the changing world of work. Several million people are now working off digital platforms. It suits the operators to say that these people are self-employed so that the minimum wage, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay, training, safety, pensions and tax are nothing to do with them. It is left to the state to pick up these costs through welfare payments and tax credits. I am sure lobbyists for platform operators and internet service providers put a very good case to the Government for their own commercial objectives. But what about fairness and costs to the public? Trade unions, civil society and charities—yes, sometimes even funded by the Government—are the ones speaking up for these things, and fairly soon some sort of balance will have to be agreed. Digital platforms themselves could be required to ensure that users comply with current regulations, and workers could belong to some kind of trade union co-operative. Then neither workers nor users would be vulnerable to exploitation.

In many other areas of new technology, charities are in the front line to achieve balance. We hope that some of our more serious medical problems will be eliminated by genome editing. For some, altering our chromosomes and genes can be a terrifying prospect. It is contrary to the faith of others. Yet it holds out the prospect of quick and relatively cheap medical miracles. Unless charities and civil society set about explaining these issues through some sort of public understanding campaign, to encourage sympathetic public opinion, the benefits of this wonderful medical research will take a long time to be accepted, if ever. I hope the Government are lobbying the charities and giving them donations to help with this work, for the sake of the nation’s health.

Lots more things are coming down the line where a balance will have to be achieved between commercial interests, security and the public good: the internet of things and digital money, to name but two. My noble friend Lady Hayter is absolutely right to move this debate and I congratulate her. Uncertainty on how to respond to the changes brought about by new technologies will lead to inaction and lost opportunity unless the input from society brings about acceptance and understanding, through balance and fairness.

For the sake of progress and the public good, the Government should listen to all these voices equally and not give disproportionate influence to company voices, nor quieten the voices of tax-supported charities. We need them all equally to better inform our decisions.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, I, too, want to deal with the quality of legislation presented to us. In recent years I have served on your Lordships’ Delegated Powers Committee, and I currently serve on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. During this time, I have become more and more concerned about the poor state of legislation presented to us by the Government, and it is getting worse. The Executive have to do something about it.

Of course, what brought this to a head was the statutory instrument regarding tax credits. This precipitated the Strathclyde report, to which many noble Lords have referred. But this was not the only example of poor preparation, or of using secondary legislation to introduce new and significant matters. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has recently drawn attention to matters across the whole spectrum of government—social housing, hunting, building regulations, feed-in tariffs. Last week, we drew your Lordships’ attention to the use of secondary legislation to bring about a large West Midlands combined authority with a directly elected mayor—surely a major change in local government—for which there was three weeks’ consultation, and that was via the internet. The previous month we drew to your Lordships’ attention the withdrawal of statutory regulations by Defra regarding the welfare of certain farmed animals, replacing them with a voluntary code on the grounds that this would achieve higher standards. But the responses to the consultations indicated the opposite. The order was cancelled.

Do the Government consider that to be a defeat, or is it the House doing its job? By drawing attention to these weaknesses and errors in legislation, the House has assisted the Government in avoiding some very nasty and awkward unintended consequences. The result of this poor preparation is that the passage of legislation has become uncertain—even, in some cases, chaotic. It lacks authority when it lacks detail. Indeed, while the Welfare Reform and Work Bill was still before us, the Government used secondary legislation to implement a major change—while the Bill was still in progress.

I put it to the Minister that the Government are losing votes not only because there is disagreement over policy but because the legislation is not thought through. It is poorly prepared and incomplete. That is why we have recently seen government U-turns or policies changed or abandoned. What worries me is that as standards decline, opportunities grow to avoid, evade, ignore, or even break the rules—rules that are devised for the public good. Poorly prepared legislation forced through will undermine our culture of strong and fair-minded government.

So, what is to be done? Is the problem a lack of staff with the expertise, analytical skills and experience in preparing legislation? Have departmental cuts gone beyond trimming the fat and unnecessary bureaucracy, so that the bone is damaged? We all know that when cuts are made, the cost reductions soon look good in the budget but the deterioration in service, quality and standards follow later. Is that what is happening? As the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, implied, Ministers have a responsibility, too. As he said, they need to make speeches, present Green Papers and White Papers, do the pre-legislative scrutiny, present draft Bills and proposed schedules of secondary legislation. Is that work being done? It would appear not.

Then there are all the departmental checks. Are these being done, and is LegCo—the Cabinet Committee—doing its work? Here is what I hope is a helpful suggestion—artificial intelligence. The Minister may have read about it in the Huffington Post today. The Government’s Science and Technology Facilities Council at Hartree has a five-year contract with Watson—that wonderful equipment at IBM. After all, machines now read and analyse clauses in loan agreements and contracts of sale. Could legal technologists help to prepare better legislation? They could ensure that draft legislation contains all the Government’s own principles and standards on consultation and on impact assessments, and that everything is included in the Explanatory Memoranda, and even point to possible Henry VIII clauses.

It would be wrong to introduce legislation curbing the powers of your Lordships while leaving everything else as it is. It would be just like getting rid of an irritation. Without dealing with the cause, the irritation will come back.

Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Grand Committee

Relevant documents: 1st Report from the Delegated Powers Committee, 2nd Report from the Constitution Committee.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.

Clause 13: Power to make social investments

Amendment 20B

Moved by

Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill [HL]

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Grand Committee

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I think this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn. The Committee is due to return to reconsider this Bill on Monday 6 July.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee stands adjourned.

Committee adjourned at 7.28 pm.